The Horowitz Report is stunning, not for the IG’s anodyne conclusions, but for the facts he has uncovered: By far the most important is that the investigation continued after January 2017, when the wheels fell off the Steele Dossier. The FBI’s choices to lie and double down on a manifestly unfounded investigation turned their investigation into an attempted coup.
The 400+ page DOJ IG Review of Four FISA Applications and Other Aspects of the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane Investigation (the “IG Report”) is far more troubling than Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s bland conclusions imply. The report raises a host of issues and I hope to get to all of them in several future posts.
The first and foremost issue is that, while the Russia investigation aimed at Trump was founded entirely on the criminal allegations in the Steele Dossier (there were additional ancillary facts that were relevant but not criminal), the FBI knew by January 2017 that the Steele Dossier was itself unfounded. In its submissions to the FISA Court, the FBI made bald-faced lies about the Steele Report and then continued investigating President Trump and his administration for months, ultimately manipulating the situation in order to appoint a Special Counsel, who then carried on investigating for more than two years. These people need to be held to account criminally.